If the GOP wants to win, it needs to make its tent big again

After getting creamed in elections across multiple states on Tuesday, Republicans need to take a long, hard look at why Democrats’ message is winning — and why voters are souring on the GOP.

Priority No. 1: Stop letting Dems be the loudest voices on affordability.

From New York City’s Zohran Mamdani to New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill to Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger, every winning candidate put one issue front and center: The struggle of working- and middle-class people to make ends meet.

In 2024, the Republicans had a monopoly on the topic; voters facing sky-high Bidenflation were desperate for relief, and President Donald Trump promised to bring back the roaring economy that defined his first term and put money in their pockets.

During his winning campaign exactly a year ago, he convincingly cast himself as an “everyman,” working the window at McDonald’s and riding a garbage truck — in uniform.

Now, he’s building a $300 million ballroom onto the East Wing, bragging about his marble-and-gold-drenched Lincoln bathroom renovation; he just threw a “Great Gatsby”-themed Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago.

There’s nothing wrong with sprucing up the White House. But perhaps the president should also spend more time visiting regular folk at work in the restaurant, field, factory and office as he did on the campaign trail.

He can listen to them and prove to them that he’s on their side while showing off the charm he’s always had with them.

Otherwise, it’s easy for Democrats to paint this as “let them eat cake” indifference.

When 60 Minutes’ Norah O’Donnell told him Sunday that grocery prices are on the rise again, Trump simply denied: “They went up under Biden, right now they’re going down.”

No they’re not, and everyone who shops knows it; that’s most voters.

Gaslighting like that is what got the last administration thrown out.

It doesn’t help that too many Americans’ immediate financial outlook has gotten worse, not better.

Whatever tariffs’ long-term benefits may be, they have caused immediate pain to businesses and workers, sending costs of materials soaring, tanking consumer confidence and creating uncertainty for executives and stakeholders.

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Follow the latest on the Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani:

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That equals layoffs, wage stagnation and higher-ups putting off promotions or new hiring.

The promises of foreign companies to invest in America will take years to pay off in cheaper goods and new jobs.

Yes, the stock market is soaring. But that’s driven by a small number of companies whose value is a promise of increasing productivity and profits — ergo, you don’t need as many pesky humans to do the same work.

Affordability will only become a bigger issue as more industries automate out jobs with AI; a new Stanford study shows that job openings have dropped 32% since ChatGPT made its debut, with jobs for younger people slumping 13%.

And we likely haven’t yet glimpsed the full scale of the AI job-replacement apocalypse yet: It may create good new jobs in the long run, but the immediate pain is all too real.

Trade deals, cheaper energy, tax cuts and other economy-boosters should pay off soon and perhaps before the midterms, but can’t console those who find so many costs rising faster than their incomes now.

The GOP has failed to make its case to these voters, allowing Democrats to swoop in and make shiny promises of better days.

And those aren’t the only voters Republicans are alienating en masse: Trump’s huge gains among Latinos and other ethnic groups last November evaporated Tuesday, as heavily South Asian and Hispanic districts in Virginia and New Jersey that backed him turned blue.

It doesn’t take a swanky DC consultant to figure out why: Lots of voters, ethnic and otherwise, hate the sight of mass roundups of otherwise-law-abiding illegal migrants.

Homeland Security’s efforts to hit sky-high quotas has it moving beyond arresting gangbangers, rapists and murderers to detaining waitresses, dishwashers, teachers, day-care workers — even an Afghan who helped the United States fight the Taliban.

This feeds the narrative that Republicans have it out for minorities — which is only helped by the fact that outright racists have grown far too comfortable loudly spewing their hate on the right.

MAGA-aligned trolls have launched vile attacks on Second Lady Usha Vance and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon; anti-Indian bigotry also brings whining that South Asian immigrants on H-1B visas are “taking American jobs.”

Stop letting creeps like white nationalist Nick Fuentes (and his enablers) poison MAGA messaging.

Democrats have paid big for their obsession with identity politics and hate driven campaigns against certain groups: Republicans should know better.

Trump transformed the GOP by addressing working-class concerns and confronting woke obsessions with race and other identity politics; Republicans will forfeit all his gains if they come off as indifferent to regular folks’ economic pain and waging their own ethnic wars.

Team Trump and Republicans generally need to get back to delivering for average Americans of all stripes.

If the GOP wants to bounce back to winning in the 2026 midterms and beyond, it desperately needs to course-correct now.